


I don't want to be friends

by Claire_cz



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 2021 Worlds, Developing Relationship, F/F, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Friendship, LobbySecretSanta, Normal world AU because we deserve good things, ice shows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claire_cz/pseuds/Claire_cz
Summary: Zhenya and Wakaba are good friends. Will Zhenya pick the right gift for Wakaba or will she come to a more important realization? How will the much awaited meeting at Worlds go? And will their friends help them?
Relationships: Wakaba Higuchi/Evgenia Medvedeva
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	I don't want to be friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Junliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junliet/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Junliet. 
> 
> Photos referred to in the fic:  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/BbHZQibHh6x/  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/BakDrvKnjN6/

Zhenya sat down on the bench and immediately reached for her phone. She had only a five-minute break. So she quickly read the new message, watched the attached video and replied: “ _Wow, triple axel looking good._ 💪”

After a few moments a beep signalized a new message. “ _Thank you. And your 4S_?”

“ _Not bad. Brian looks happy. Maybe even growing some hair back_ ,” Zhenya laughed when she was typing the answer and wondered what would Brian or Yuzuru think about sharing so much info with a direct competitor. “ _But Wakaba is a friend. So it doesn’t count, right_.” Zhenya decided in her mind.

“On the ice please, and I want to see a nice quad sal in the run-through,” Brian called.

“ _I’m so looking for Worlds. We’ll see each other_ ,” Zhenya typed on her phone again during another break. “ _I have to give you something for all the sweets you sent me._ ” And then she switched the keyboard into Japanese.

“Hey, Jason, could you look at it? Is this sentence right?” she asked.

“Just this one small change,” Jason took her phone and corrected the sentence. “So cool, you are learning Japanese.”

“Well, first I did it because I wanted to understand all the fans, there so many fans in Japan and now I’m texting Wakaba a lot. And always try to add one sentence in Japanese.”

“Awww, you are so cute. I always remember your photos from Rostelecom. How you are embracing at the banket,” Jason cooed.

Zhenya hit the send button but appeared to be lost in thoughts.

“Jun, tell me, a gift, what would you like to get as a gift?” Zhenya asked when their training session finished.

“A bunnyyyy,” Jun squealed.

“Hmm, and something less impractical?”

“But a gift shouldn’t be practical…”

“Ok, but something else than a bunny.”

“A…. racoon?” Jun said more quietly but still in a hopeful tone.

“Thank god I have Javi on speed dial,” Zhenya rolled her eyes, but simultaneously petted Jun’s arm. “You are adorable.”

Javi didn’t pick up the phone, so Zhenya was a bit aimlessly wandering to the cafeteria. “What are you doing?” she asked when she noticed Jason concentrated on something on his laptop.

“Just leafing through a catalogue.”

Zhenya bent down and looked at the screen. “It’s full of meat.”

“That’s right! It’s a butcher’s shop in Switzerland…”

“Butcher’s shop in Switzerland… o…okey,” she echoed.

“What? Don’t look like that at me. I just want to send a meat flower to Shoma.”

“I’m … forget I asked. Javi please save me and pick up the phone.”

“Hiiiii, Javi, I’m so happy you finally picked up!

“What is so urgent?”

“So if you had a girlfriend… I mean you certainly have a girlfriend. But that’s not the point. What would you give her? You know just because you want to. A spontaneous gift… Except… it doesn’t have to be a girlfriend. What would you give to your _sister_?”

Javi laughted. “Sister? Socks with my face printed all over it. But she did it to me first!”

“I am hunging up now and ordering a ton of anime,” Zhenya announced.

Before that, however, she went to Wakaba’s Instagram to find the photo Jason was talking about earlier. She downloaded this photo and also the other photo from Rostelecom, with them wearing their national team sweatshirts, Wakaba holding a cup of hot chocolate and Zhenya taking the photo. Then she enlarged it and gently circled around Wakaba’s cheeks with her finger and imagined she was touching them for real, squishing them, kissing them…

* * *

“Good. Good triple axel,” the coach said and Wakaba smiled.

She was in great shape and couldn’t wait for Worlds to show it. Though it wasn’t the only reason she was looking forward to Worlds so much. When the training session finished, she unlocked her phone and looked at her home screen. She had there a photo Zhenya took with her at 2017 Rostelecom and Wakaba loved to look at Zhenya’s eyes and trace her smile and the delicate necklace with her fingers.

“What’s going on,” Shoma asked because Wakaba was staring at her phone for so long without doing anything.

“Platonic love,” she sighed.

“What?” Shoma asked confused.

"Never mind, we should quickly go to the ballet class, we are already late.”

The federation decided not to take any chances and summoned all World championships participants for a fourteen-day bootcamp to Switzerland to get used to the time difference. Though Shoma appeared to be the most jet-legged of them all, even though he was training in Champéry for months and Wakaba had to constantly remind him about the afternoon ballet classes (when she herself wasn’t daydreaming).

“Hi, Javi,” Zhenya picked her phone.

“Hi. Ehm, I hope you are not angry at me. But the other day, you called so early. It was only nine in the morning!”

Zhenya laughed. “Nobody can be angry at you, you know that, Javi. Though you were not very helpful.”

“I want to remedy it. So, I was thinking what I would give to a friend. But you know, you know your friends better than I. I know my friends, I know what I would gift them. So…”

“Yeah, never mind…”

“Is it a special occasion or something…?”

“No, I guess, I just wanted to tell her… oh my god, Javi!”

“What? Zhenya, talk to me!”

“I don’t want to be friends with her anymore.”

“… well, ehm”

“I want to be girlfriends! Oh god, what should I do? That’s not possible, right? What should I do?”

“Keep breathing,” Javi said as calmly as he could.  
“So you want to date your mysterious friend. What’s wrong with that. Friends to lovers happens so often. You are no exception.”

“Oh, well, thanks,” Zhenya said, with a lot of irony in her voice.

“I mean, of course, if she’s from the figure skating world, I can imagine some difficulties and you are so famous everywhere. But you don’t have to announce it to the whole world just yet. Just see what she thinks about this whole dating idea and ask her out.”

“That simple?”

“Dating is no rocket science.” Javi laughed heartily. “And besides, I can’t imagine anyone turning you down”.

* * *

“But what if I don’t want only platonic love?” Wakaba suddenly whispered to Shoma in the middle of the ballet class.

Shoma very slowly turned towards her. “Why are you telling me? I’m not an expert,” Shoma whispered confused.  
“Oh, I hope, you don’t mean me, right? You are not in love with me?”

Wakaba started laughing aloud.

“Higuchi-san, can we continue with the training?” a ballet dancer asked.

Wakaba and Shoma simultaneously turned red.

The class finally finished.

“Shoma, and how did you began dating Jason?” Wakaba asked, trying to sound casual.

“Me?”

“I mean it must be difficult, long-distance relationships and so.”

“Ehm,” Shoma said and continued munching on a slice of salami – a part of the “meat flower” he really received. “Ehm… I don’t even know. I’m just saying _maybe_ in English when I’m abroad and smiling. And then Jason told me that we were dating. And I didn’t complain.”

Wakaba smiled but internally thought that Shoma wouldn’t be of much help for her right now.

* * *

A message beeped. “ _I’m so looking for Worlds. Want to be on podium with you. And also have to tell you something_ ,” Zhenya read Wakaba’s message and immediately began writing: “ _I’d love to be on the podium with you. And also have to really finally get you something for the sweets you sent me_ ~~and tell you something~~.” But then she decided to delete the last four words and instead added a hearty-eyes emoji.

“I can’t believe it,” Wakaba squealed, standing on the bronze step of the podium.

“I knoooow,” Zhenya screamed, taking advantage of the cameramen looking away.

Sasha, standing on the highest step, just looked in confusion from left to right. Zhenya and Wakaba giggled.

“It was a disaster,” Wakaba sighed in an airplane after she sat down next to Shoma.

“You have a bronze medal,” Shoma announced the obvious.

“I don’t mean this. But I had some plans, I wanted to tell, you know, the person, that I might be in love,” she whispered. “And we were never alone, there was just absolutely no time. So many journalists, so many interviews, everyone telling you where to go, what to say, what to wear.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Shoma sighed and put an eye mask for sleeping on.

Wakaba open the calendar app in her phone. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe we won’t see each other until NHK. That’s more than half a year! And even this is not certain!” But Shoma was already asleep.

“ _Well, that went well_ ,” Zhenya thought when she was packing a gift she had for Wakaba back into her suitcase. “ _The journalists were really besides themselves. Everyone talking about the greatest comeback, Olympics… No complains, though a bit of privacy would be nice_ ,” she mused.

“Oh, no!” Zhenya sighed at the airport while scrolling down on Instagram.

“What’s wrong?” her mom asked.

“Nothing. Just I thought I’ll met a friend, Wakaba, you know her, at Fantasy on ice. But she’s confirmed for Prince Ice World… Looks like we won’t see each other…”

“Maybe a quick visit after you are done with the Sailor Moon show?” her mom suggested.

“Maybe.”

* * *

A director of a Japanese agency organizing various events smiled. “And one last signature. We are so pleased that you’ll star as Sailor Moon in our show, Medvedeva-san,” he said. “If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be expecting you on June, 12th at the airport and then we’ll begin with rehearsals but you already know that.”

One last shaking of hands and the director left.

“Yes, everything’s ok,” Zhenya’s manager said, reading again the contract.

“Yeah, contracts in Japan are always ok,” Zhenya said absentmindedly.

“You are their main star now. Lots of duties…”

“I know, they are making me come to Japan one week earlier than the other cast. For promotion. But I don’t mind, because one more week of Japanese foooood.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant. So, they gave you some duties, but you can have some requests too. You know some little diva moments… That’s what stars do.”

“Well, I don’t mean requesting to stay in a presidential suite in every hotel in every city you’ll be touring but something less extravagant,” he explained when Zhenya looked at him very sceptically.

“But there’s nothing… Actually…. Oh, thank you!!”

“Mr. Ito… I was wondering… Of course it doesn’t depend only on you. But maybe for one of the supporting roles you could ask Wakaba Higuchi? I don’t know if she’d agree… but she’s not in Fantasy on ice, which is such a shame. Because I really think Japanese spectators should see her as often as possible and how great and beautiful she- … her skating is,” Zhenya was nervously doodling on a sheet of paper (where she wrote the points she wanted to go through during the call) and carefully listening.

…

“Absolutely, thank you so much.” Zhenya breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, and Mr. Ito, I don’t think it’s necessary to tell her that it was my idea.”

…

“Thank you. Arigato gozaimasu.”

* * *

“I’m so happy you are here,” Zhenya screamed, outstretched her arms and ran at full speed towards Wakaba.

Wakaba quickly put her luggage on the floor and hugged Zhenya. They hugged, then pulled a bit apart, still holding hands, looked at each other, began giggling and then tightly embraced each other again – and repeated this a few times until a receptionist discreetly coughed and handed Wakaba the key of her room.

“504,” she whispered to Zhenya while lifting the luggage from the floor.

“I… saw that. I mean it literally is on the keychain, in big letters so I saw it,” Zhenya kept mumbling to herself.

“Wait, does this-?” She took her phone out of the handbag and began writing. “ _Hey Javi, what does it mean when a girl whispers a number of her room to you_.” Then deleted the question and started over. “ _When you whisper your room number to someone, what does_ -“.

“Nope, that sounds so stupid. Gotta figure it out on my own!”

“ _Okay, so I’ll just go and knock on the door and we’ll see_ ,” Zhenya repeated in her mind over and over.

She finally knocked on the door and the door immediately opened. Wakaba tiptoed back into the room and just stood there still wearing her costume and played with her hands nervously.

“I still can’t believe I’m playing Sailor Mars,” she squealed. “And I wanted to see it properly in the mirror so I took it with me after the rehearsal I put it on now.”

“I’m so happy, I ask-, they, that they asked you!”

Wakaba just laughed and twirled around in her costume.

Zhenya looked at the costume and admired every detail excitedly. “Wooow, your hair is so long. I never noticed.”

“I know, always have a bun for skating, but Sailor Mars has long hair. So I wanted to try,” Wakaba explained.

“It looks so great. Maybe I could help you with combing the hair,” Zhenya suggested.

“Yay!” Wakaba said down on a pink plushie pouffe, handed Zhenya her comb and smiled again.

Zhenya was gently combing through Wakaba’s hair and increasingly more often just petting her head and hair with her hands. Zhenya’s own long strands of hair fell onto Wakaba’s shoulders and Wakaba started gently curling them around her fingers.

“I like your Billie Eilish exhibition.”

“Really?”

“I like your long hair in the exhibition,” Wakaba whispered.

“Awwww,” Zhenya cooed.

Wakaba took a deep breath. “But it’s so sad? I thought you’d do Sailor moon at Worlds or Ariana Grande. People like fun.”

“Yeah, but I like to mix things up. I have sooo many exhibitions and this one was special.”

“Mhhhm,” Wakaba tried to put on a smile. “I thought that it was special. I thought you were sad and waiting for someone.”

“Oh, not like that! I’m pleased to say this was for the last time I was performing this ex. I mean maybe some time later I’ll return to it or do some changes or whatever… But yeah, there was someone and I was waiting, hoping. He broke my heart. And now I’m over it. I don’t feel anything, anything for him when I’m skating this,” she explained.

“I was so scared,” Waka said in a small voice.

“But why?”

“Because I was also waiting and …”

Zhenya put a finger on her mouth, put the comb away, gently tucked Wakaba’s hair behind her right ear and lightly kissed her on the cheek. Wakaba exhaled, put her arms around Zhenya’s neck and gently pushed her so that Zhenya sat on Wakaba and the tiny pouffe in front of the mirror. They looked at each other in the mirror. Both smiling, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes.

“Come hereee,” Wakaba pulled Zhenya’s hand and guided her to the bed. “Sit,” she said and smiled mysteriously.

After a moment she returned with a plate and dramatically lifted the lid.

“Daifuku, mochi, dorayaki,” she proudly presented the sweets to Zhenya.

“And also chocolate,” she pointed at the deformed bar of chocolate. “But it melted, forgot to give it to fridge,” she laughed.

“It really really melted,” Zhenya joined her laughing and put a finger into the thick chocolate liquid.

Zhenya licked the chocolate off her finger and dipped it into the chocolate again. Then she turned to Wakaba and painted cat whiskers on her cheeks.

Wakaba winked, put her finger into the chocolate too and painted the tip of Zhenya’s nose and also added cat whiskers. “Now we don’t need Instagram cat filter, we are real,” she whispered excitedly and reached for Zhenya’s hand. The next moment they carelessly fall back onto the bed and giggled.

Zhenya got up after a few moments. “We shouldn’t make the bedsheets dirty. I’ll go for a washcloth.” She returned with a wet washcloth and gently dabbed at Waka’s face and removed all the chocolate stains.

“Now I clean,” Waka said and repeated the procedure on Zhenya and then patted her cheeks and nose.

“The bed is big. You don’t have to go now. We can watch anime and then you’ll go to sleep.”

“Okay, I can stay for a while. I missed watching anime with someone. Mom and Jerry don’t understand it,” Zhenya winked.

Waka went with the washcloth to the bathroom and when she returned she was already in her pajamas. She hopped onto the bed next to Zhenya and switched on the tv. After a moment she felt Zhenya put her hand onto hers and they interlaced their fingers. Waka turned to Zhenya a bit and smiled.

“Wait,” Zhenya said, surprised. “You have Sailor Moon on your pajamas?” she asked with a smile.

“I… I didn’t think that this…” Wakaba vaguely gestured towards Zhenya and blushed. “And I wanted Sailor Moon to be with me forev-“

Before she finished a sentence, Zhenya kissed her. This time, on the lips.

**Author's Note:**

> I took the liberty to move the Sailor Moon show to 2021.  
> (If anyone's interested, this was supposed to be the cast in the planned show in 2020: Sailor Moon - Evgenia Medvedeva, Sailor Mercury - Satoko Miyahara, Sailor Mars - Mirai Nagasu, Sailor Venus: Becky Bereswill, Sailor Jupiter - Alissa Czisny, Tuxedo Mask - Andrew Poje, Kunzite - Jason Brown, Special Guest - Kurt Browning, Jadeite: Takahito Mura, Nephrite: Dylan Moscovitch, Zoisite: Seiya Hashimoto)


End file.
